


On the Sixth Night of Hannukah....

by BarefootGirl



Series: Eight Ficlets of Hannukah [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, if it's the holidays there must be guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:47:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9113419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootGirl/pseuds/BarefootGirl
Summary: The fifth of 8 planned winter holiday ficlets.Mary lights a candle, and has a conversation.





	

It was a whim, a spur of the moment - not so much a flip back to an old faith but the hope of finding a new one, she supposed. God is real, if not currently in the building, and she shares a kitchen with an angel. Faith seems both more and less of a stretch than it did in her first go-round.

The candles still burn the same, even in unfamiliar surroundings, the taper thin and pale blue, the wick a twist of fabric, the flame dipping and bowing under the faint circulation of air in the church. 

“I’m angry at you,” she tells the candle. “No, I’m furious. And I feel guilty for that, because there was so much I should have told you, things that…if you’d known, if you’d been prepared, you could have handle it better, maybe. Would have known that there were people you could go to, people you could trust…”

Except there hadn’t been, really. She’d cut ties so thoroughly when her parents died, and the community had respected that, had let her disappear off the grid, become a civilian… so much so that when she’d died, none of them had stepped forward, leaving John to flounder on his own, find his own way.

She was angry at them, too, but it circled around to her own guilt. If she’d told him, if she’d remembered, if she’d thought beyond the fact that she couldn’t bear to be alone, before she took a demon’s deal.

It was her fault, what had happened to Sam. Her responsibility, not John’s. She had done it, and left them to deal with it.

“But you did have help. The boys told me about Bobby and Pastor Jim, and the others. You had a network. One of them must have told you you couldn’t do it that way, couldn’t drag the boys… But you wouldn’t have listened, would you? You wouldn’t abandon them the way your father abandoned you, not even to keep them safer. Another generation of Winchesters wouldn’t grow up without their father. Oh, I can hear you, those exact words, and as much as I want to slap them out of your mouth, I understand, I do, John. But …

“Was it worth it? In the end, after everything, was it worth it? Did you find a heaven where everything was perfect, the moments where we never fought, where Dean thought the sun rose and set in your shadow, where Sam was an innocent baby…”

That had been her heaven. The brief moments of her civilian life, when it had seemed like she’d escaped, when she had everything she’d ever dreamed of, and hadn't had to pay a very heavy price.

She rested a finger over the tip of the flame, just barely out of reach, letting the heat dance across her skin like a penance.

“I don’t know if we ever actually had a chance. Fate and god’s plan and cupids…. But I loved you, John. The good parts, and the bad, the damaged crap that you thought you had to hide. I loved all of it.”

She let the fame touch her skin, the brief pain focusing her thoughts, sending her words to a different ear. “Let him know that? You owe us that much, to let him know that. Please.”

She folded a dollar and left it in the alms box, and left the church, buttoning her coat against the winter wind as she pushed through the door.

There was silence in the empty church, with only the faint flickering tips of candles to say anyone had ever been there.

**Author's Note:**

> Because it wouldn't be me if there wasn't at least a _bit_ of angst....
> 
>  
> 
> Unbeta'd, because my usuals are (still) up in their eggnog and latkes.... :-)


End file.
